During Mass Effect 2 Prologue
What had been another pointless sweep for Geth stragglers turned first alarming and then deadly so fast that the crew hardly knew what had happened. The unidentified vessel opened fire on the Normandy as though her stealth drive didn't exist, crippling the ship before there was any real chance to return fire.
Melanie Shepard hadn't even been on the bridge when it happened, her shift not scheduled to start for another hour. As their mysterious enemy continued to rain destruction on the ship's battered hull, she leapt into action, desperately trying to get as many people as possible to the escape pods and beat back the fires that seemed to be erupting everywhere at once.
She had accounted for most of the crew when she was stopped by the voice of the ship's resident scientist, Liara T'Soni, asking her if the Alliance would get there in time. Shepard cursed and said they damn well better, but she knew that even if they were nearby, they'd only be able to rescue survivors, not save the ship. Liara knew it too, but told her that Joker didn't, that he wouldn't abandon the Normandy. Shepard swore again and told Liara that she'd go get him while the asari got to a life pod.
Liara looked straight at her, concerned but not afraid, and said in that calm, soft voice of hers, "I'm not leaving you behind." For a moment, Melanie hesitated. Over the months that they'd spent hunting for Saren, she'd come to value Liara highly. Beneath her shy, anti-social exterior, there was a lot to admire. On Noveria, her toughness facing down her mother and her compassion afterwards, advocating for the Rachni Queen, had made Melanie wonder if she'd made a mistake when she'd turned the archeologist down.
Now, however, there wasn't time for the past. She ordered Liara to go, told her that she needed her to make it out alive. As Liara complied and said goodbye, something in her voice made Shepard wonder if she thought that it would be forever.
She got to the cockpit, told Joker to not to die stupidly, and kicked his ass into gear. They had almost made it to the escape pod when their attacker struck again, the beam rending the ship around them, separating the commander and the pilot. Joker made it into the escape pod, but she didn't, the force of the blast knocking her out of the reach of his outstretched arm. As she was propelled away from the wreckage of the Normandy, she realized that the attack had damaged the oxygen recycling system in her space suit, which was venting its vital contents into the vacuum. She tried her best to reattach them, fingers attempting to fit tubes into sockets that had been mangled too badly to receive them, but it was no use.
She was going to die. There was nothing she could do now; no way the Alliance would reach her in time. Though she didn't want to die, she had never been afraid of it. She had seen death too many times, been too close to it, not to be prepared for the possibility. What weighed on her now was all that was left undone, the Reaper threat that the Council still wouldn't take seriously and that someone else would have to stop now.
She did wish she had more time. There was so much in the galaxy that she still wanted to see, so much to… so many people she'd be leaving behind. As her oxygen began to run out, her mind drifted. The faces of her crew ran through her mind, but the one that fixed itself there was that of the asari scientist, her smile providing a final comfort to the dying Specter. Melanie's last thought before the blackness swallowed her was to hope that Liara would be rescued in time.